The Benghazi Report Basically Concludes Everything Was A Mess

So, the Senate Intelligence Committee, a majority of the members of which are Democratic politicians, has come out with its report on the events in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, and the president and his foreign policy team do not come out of it looking very good at all. When an ambassador gets killed, and a Senate committee controlled by your party concludes that the attack was "preventable," that's Lowell Weicker-on-Watergate quality objectivity.

Also, too: as is often the case, any time a situation deteriorates into five alarms in Shanghai, you can find the CIA in there somewhere. Today's special in the cafeteria at Langley is library paste au gratin.

The report found that, in the months before the attack, American intelligence agencies gave ample warning about deteriorating security in Benghazi and the risks to Americans in the city. As these warnings were issued, the C.I.A. bolstered its security at the agency's Benghazi facility - known as the Annex - but the State Department did not make similar moves to protect the diplomatic compound. "In sum, the Mission facility had a much weaker security posture than the Annex, with a significant disparity in the quality and quantity of equipment and security upgrades," the report concluded. The Senate panel also criticized communication breakdowns between various security agencies. For instance, the report found that the United States Africa Command, the military headquarters responsible for Libya, did not know about the C.I.A. annex.

Wonderful. The soldiers tasked to protect the compound didn't even know what was in there because the CIA doesn't want anyone to know its business. It's a wonder we all came out of the Cold War alive.

(A useful historical side trip: you will note that there is no purely Democratic "minority report" offered in defense of the White House. Back a couple decades, when Saint Ronnie's people got caught selling missiles to terrorist states in order to fund illegally our own terrorists in this hemisphere, the Select Commitee issued its report, butthere was a "minority report" in which the whole investigation was declared an illegitmate infringement on absolute executive power. Its author was a rising young congressman named Richard Cheney. Bipartisanship always has been for the other fellas.)

Alas, as we all learned from Schoolhouse Rock, there are two houses of Congress and one of them is controlled by the crazy people, so Tiger Beat On The Potomacwent trolling where the wild things play and found dissatisfaction with the Senate's work among some of the more exotic fauna.

"There is never a shortage of bipartisanship when we don't have all the facts," Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) charged of the report, which was released Wednesday. Gohmert - one of the most critical voices in the wake of the September 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate that killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens - said there are too many unanswered questions for the committee to have produced a comprehensive report.

Or...

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) called attention to the report's findings that the intelligence community was aware of the threat beforehand but did little to improve security at the site. "The administration looks very flat-footed and certainly inept and incompetent when it came to Benghazi," Bachmann said. She criticized former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has been a conservative target in the charge that the administration covered up key facts about the controversy. "Why did Clinton fail in her job as the head of the State Department to safely protect the people in Benghazi when they knew it was a problem?" Bachmann said. "Today more than ever Benghazi stands as the symbol of incompetency of the Obama administration. It's a high hurdle Clinton has to overcome in the future."

Or, finally, way out there in the vastness of the Great Magellanic Wingnout Cloud...

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) disputed the report's findings that the controversial talking points then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice used on Sunday morning news programs were the product of incomplete intelligence reports. King said the administration knew the attack wasn't the product of a protest in response to an anti-Islam video. King said the administration briefed Congress in a classified setting days after the attack, and while he didn't disclose what was said in the briefing, "They told us the same lies that they told America on Sunday TV."

If the report has suggested that the president and the former secretary of state be hung in Lafayette Park, these three clowns would be whining about the lack of a guillotine. There is no compelling reason to quiet Louie Gohmert about anything ever. Why people in the Beltway insist on doing so either demonstrates a profound lack of judgment, or a deep affection for politics-as-freak-show. Nothing else is possible.

Charles P. PierceCharles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io

This commenting section is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page. You may be able to find more information on their web site.

A Part of Hearst Digital Media
Esquire participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites.